Product Description

Enterprise SATA drives offer similar dollar-per-gigabyte advantages as consumer SATA for tier-2 storage while also providing key design and process enhancements to allow for successful integration with specific Dell RAID controllers as part of Dell’s server and storage solutions. Typical SATA drives commonly found in the consumer, desktop and notebook arena lack the design and reliability characteristics required for the more strenuous enterprise environment. These consumer (or client)-grade hard drives are typically rated at around 550K hours MTBF (mean time between failures) and not rated for 24x7x365 usage. While these consumer-grade drives are typically OK to utilize as boot devices, their capability to perform within the enterprise is limited. enterprise SATA drives are designed with reliability and compatibility in mind. Enterprise SATA drives are rated for 24x7x365 operation, have Dell developed and certified firmware to ensure compatibility within Dell servers and storage, and also are typically equipped with rotational vibration circuitry to allow for the adjacencies of multiple drives, servers and storage enclosures common within the enterprise.